The Minority Group Forbidden to Speak for Itself

Posted on April 23, 2007 in Hatred Stigma

Let there be no mistake: I appreciate Jill’s analysis of the backlash stemming from the Virginia Tech killings last week. She does a fine job of outlining the issues and responding to the vile platitudes of those who would lock us up. Also check Hugo’s account of his experiences in the mental health system.

If you follow the blogs of [[bipolar disorder|bipolar]] and [[borderline disorder|borderline]] sufferers like I do, you’ll have noticed something: we haven’t been commenting on what happened. The main reason I think is that it invites a “are you still beating your wife” kind of argument in return. But beyond this is just a simple fact of life: we’re members of the minority group which isn’t allowed to speak for itself.

To live in mental illness involves a reality redefined by brain chemistry and by the social respect of one’s peers. Our brain chemistry can be straightened out. But the way others treat us because we suffer from organic brain dysfunctions is beyond our reach. And the nature of that treatment isolates us from having a voice in our own future.

Sure, there are plenty who speak for us. Civil rights attornies, psychiatrists, psychologists, people like Jill. But put us on a panel and ask a question about what it is like to be mentally ill and the audience will turn to anyone except us. People treat our complaints about stigma as if they were a hallucination. “Oh, you can’t believe that so-and-so thinks less of you because of your illness” is a not too atypical answer. Everyone involved in the mental health field is allowed to speak up for our rights except us!

People believe that our acknowledgement of our disease, of our embarassing episodes, gives them a license to patronize us. Perhaps it is strongest among those who suffer through denial of their own disorders (I can think of a few cases from my own life recently), but these model themselves after a broader trend. Stigma is not the same as the things that jump out from the sides of my vision when I am feeling manic: the feelings of being treated as unable to express my own needs come from real encounters with real people who think that they know better than I do what is good for me. In its worst manifestation, there’s a plantation mentality afoot with outbursts being treated with slapping or violent “taking down” by hospital staff. In the kinder, gentler cases we’re told to just pretend that we’re just imagining things.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman who I regard as one of the kinder people I know made a gaff when I told her that some bipolar friends and I were getting together to hike. “Oh,” she said, “it must be hard to make any progress when they are running back and forth all the time?” (You know — from pole to pole?) It wasn’t funny, but to keep a good face for myself and my peers in this disease, I let it go. This was a mild case, kind of like those light bulb jokes you hear about Californians and their love of doing things in hot tubs. Now if I had been black and reacted strongly to a racial epithet, my anger would have been understood and, yeah, even applauded. (And rightly so!) But I am the member of the minority which must, against all reason, keep a sense of humor about some of the stupidest and cruelest utterances known to the human mind.

When experts talk about what it means to be bipolar, they make reference to the many splendoured and strange things when we do when our moods shift. If there is a story involving a bipolar who commits an act of violence, you can rest assured that the illness will be mentioned in the first paragraph. No one talks about the abuse of alcohol in connection with such crimes, even though this accounts for a huge number of incidents.

The effect the insinuation can have on a human being who suffers from mental illness or a history of abuse can squash the heart of the best of us. Some years ago, I remember sitting in a support group where a fellow survivor said “You know, 35% of us who were abused as children will become violent as adults.” A long sigh expressed from the mouths of the others in the group, a sigh which turned to a choke of surprise when I said “100 minus 35 equals 65. That means sixty five percent of us will not be violent as adults.”

Two percent of violent crimes are commited by people who are mentally ill which means that the danger comes from the 98 percent who are not. What is seldom acknowledged is that the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of crime than the perpetrators, that we must bear a disproportional burden when it comes to being assaulted, raped, or murdered. We have much to fear from the rest of you and yet the myths about us persist.

* * * * *

Conservatives have started to whine about the perks we who suffer from mental illness receive. Obviously, they have not had to find a Medicare formulary which lets people order Abilify. A fine example of how conservatives manage to be our enemies while purporting to be our friends started out here in California back in the seventies. Ronald Reagan stretched forth his arms and announced to the world that he would free the patients from the state hospitals. When they were on the streets, they could go to community outpatient programs which would be much cheaper.

As a demonstration of our clout, we found ourselves out on the streets, but without the community outpatient programs. At least not for many years.

When it comes to funding, we’re last. And when voters approved a 1% Millionaires’ Tax a few years ago, the first to get money were police forces who wanted to know how better to get us to the ground and in handcuffs.

* * * * *

Undoubtably, what I have written here will be dismissed as a rant. I am, after all, bipolar and everything I say must be — without any suggestion to the contrary — be subject to close scrutiny. How many times have people come to me and told me what it feels like to be bipolar because they read some column where a psychiatrist was interviewed? People don’t ask what it is like, they tell me! Is it any wonder that I and my friends who suffer with this illness despair?

I know this: the sky above appears to be blue because of the way sunlight defracts in the atmosphere, gravity pulls me towards the ground, and many people cannot trust the public sufferer of mental illness to speak for himself. So if you have wondered at the silence, this is why. And if you haven’t, then you have shown that I have plenty of reason to worry about you.

[tags]bipolar disorder, mental illness, stigma, Virginia Tech shooting[/tags]